Last updated: Day 847 — Rain. Again.
You Found Us
If you’re reading this, one of three things happened: you picked up our shortwave frequency, someone in Craig told you we exist, or your boat washed up on our beach like the rest of ours did. Either way — welcome. You’re probably cold, definitely hungry, and wondering if this is real.
It is. We are the Heceta Island Settlement, a community of 43 people (47 if you count the Kowalski kids, which the Council does when it’s convenient) living on 178 square kilometers of temperate rainforest in Alaska’s Alexander Archipelago. We’ve been here since shortly after The Correction, which is what we call it because “total systemic collapse of global capitalism and the subsequent cascade failure of every institution that depended on it” is too long to say at Council meetings.
What This Site Is
Yes, we have a website. Before you ask — no, “the internet” is not back. We’re running a local mesh network powered by a repurposed Alaska Power & Telephone relay tower that Greg (former telecom engineer, current fish-smoker) got working in Year One. If you’re reading this from beyond the island, someone in the Inter-Island Ferry Authority’s remaining crew probably cached it on one of their data runs to Ketchikan. Hi, Ketchikan. We hope you’re eating.
This site serves as our community record, survival guide, and — if we’re being honest — proof that we existed in case this all goes sideways. We document what we’ve learned, what we’ve built, and what the people who lived here for eight thousand years before us apparently already knew.
What You Need to Know Right Now
We are not a democracy. We tried that in Month Two. It lasted eleven days. We are now a Council, which is like a democracy except the people who know how to catch salmon get more votes. This has proven surprisingly effective.
The bears are real. There are more brown bears on this island than there are of us. They were here first. We have an understanding. Mostly.
If you can do something useful, you eat. If you can’t do something useful, we’ll teach you. If you refuse to learn, there’s a very nice beach on the south shore where you can contemplate your choices.
The old residents of this region — the Tlingit, Haida, and Eyak peoples — lived here for millennia. They weren’t surviving. They were thriving. Everything we know about not dying on this island, we learned from what they left behind. Their archaeological sites, their documented practices, their entire relationship with this landscape is the reason any of us are still breathing. We say this without irony, which is notable because irony is about the only thing we have in surplus.
Navigation
Use the menu above to find what you need. If you’re new, start with New Arrivals. If you’re hungry, go to The Larder. If you want to understand why the world ended, read The Correction — though frankly, if you’re here, you already know.
If you want to understand why we might actually make it, read The Old Ways.
“We came here with nothing. It turns out everything was already here.”
— scratched into the wall of Shelter One, author unknown, Year One